Hear No Evil
by Randomestfandoms
Summary: Known by her brother as Quinn, Number 5.5 was the team's psychic, able to read the minds of anyone that she could see. But when Number 5 disappears, The Girl freezes. Her body shows no signs of ageing or decaying, as if she has simply stopped. But when her brother returns from the future with warnings of an impending apocalypse, Quinn wakes up. And she remembers everything
1. Prologue

_On the 12th hour of the first day of October 1989, 43 women around the world gave birth. This was unusual only in the fact that none of these women had been pregnant when the day first began. Sir Reginald Hargreeves, eccentric billionaire and adventurer, resolved to locate and adopt as many of the children as possible. He got seven. And a half._

_Number 5.5, The Girl was The Boy's twin. They were, for all intents and purposes, one person. Known by her brother as Quinn, Number 5.5 was the team's psychic, able to read the minds of anyone that she could see, or anyone that Number 5 could see. But when Number 5 disappears, The Girl freezes. Her body shows no signs of ageing or decaying, as if she has simply stopped. But when her brother returns from the future with warnings of an impending apocalypse, Quinn wakes up. And she remembers everything._

Disclaimer- hopefully this goes without saying, but I don't own anything except for my ideas

NOTES: Quinn calls Five "Finn" because it's a mix of Five and Twin, but she's the only one to do so, whereas everyone calls her Quinn

(For anyone interested, Quinn's faceclaim is Malina Weissman as Violet Baudelaire)

**Hear No Evil**

Prologue

"Come on, Finn," The Girl whispered, "don't do this."

The Boy smirked at his twin. "What's the big deal, Quinn? I'll only be gone a minute."

"You're not funny," she told him bluntly.

"I know that I can do it," he insisted. "And we can test out your powers too."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean…" his eyes widened in excitement, turning his expression almost manic, and Quinn knew that whatever he was going to say was something that he'd been thinking about for a long time. "What if you can project your thoughts when we're in different times?"

The Girl's eyes widened too, but in shock unlike her brother's excitement. "Seriously, Finn? I can barely manage when you're a room away, let alone a decade."

And, unfortunately, Quinn was right. While she could reach him from a distance, it always required severe panic—which was how they'd discovered that power in the first place—and she still struggled to use it at all.

"Maybe this is what you need to unlock it fully," he argued, and Quinn didn't need to read his mind to know that he wouldn't be dropping it, no matter what she said.

She loved her brother, more than anything in the world, but he was also the most stubborn person she had ever met, and she had long since learned when to argue and when to just accept the inevitable.

"Fine," she sighed. "But when this goes wrong, you're buying me all the milkshakes I want."

"And that's different from usual how?" he teased, remembering the countless Oreo milkshakes he'd bought for her over the years.

His younger sister beamed at him. "You didn't say no."

"I never say no to you," he pointed out. "And nothing will go wrong."

"Famous last words…" she said softly, wringing her hands nervously.

"Come here, Quinnie," he told her, making sure to keep his voice gentle as he pulled her into a tight hug. "I'll be back before you know it."

Quinn hugged him back just as tightly, burrowing her face in the shoulder of his blazer, identical to her own, as she tried not to cry.

"You'd better be," she said.

"I will," he promised, pulling away to wipe away the tears that had started to fall down her cheeks.

"I love you, Finn."

"I love you too, Quinn."

And, with one last cocky grin, The Boy disappeared in a flash of blue light, leaving The Girl completely alone as the world went dark.

Thanks for reading! I really hope you enjoyed this prologue! I'm beyond excited to finally share this fic with the world! And, if you want to hear more about her, feel free to visit me on tumblr Randomestfandoms-ocs (/tagged/quinn-hargreeves for everything I've made for her)


	2. You Can't Wake Up (This Is Not A Dream)

Sixteen years (and four months and four days) have passed since The Boy disappeared and The Girl froze, and now Reginald Hargreeves is dead and the surviving children are coming home. Quinn, who's been alone since Luther went to the moon, is beyond excited to have her siblings back, if only she weren't in a coma and unable to talk to them. For a family who only sees each other at weddings and funerals - and didn't go to their sister's wedding - there's certainly a lot of history to work through, and Quinn has a lot to say on the matter, if only she could say anything.

Disclaimer: I do not own The Umbrella Academy or any character except for Quinn!

Chapter title is from Gasoline by Halsey

**Hear No Evil**

You Can't Wake Up (This Is Not A Dream)

_Luther always thought that Quinn had gotten lost in her head, that losing Five had left her floating, and had always hoped that maybe he could pull her back. _-Vanya Hargreeves, Extra-Ordinary: My Life As Number Seven

It was quiet. Too quiet. It was always quiet, ever since Luther went to the moon, but it was never this quiet. She could always hear Grace's heels click-clacking on the hardwood floors, or Pogo pacing the halls, she could usually even hear Reginald's loud footsteps, never concerned about his overbearing presence. And Luther; every day for sixteen years at exactly ten in the morning, Luther would spend an hour just talking to her.

Even for his four years on the moon, he sent a transmission every day that Grace would play in her room, and it had kept her sane ever since her twin had left her. It had allowed her to track time, to keep separate her sixteen years in the mansion's infirmary and the almost fifty years she had spent trapped inside Five's mind in the future, in the apocalypse and everything that came after. She would have lost her mind if it weren't for Luther, for her big brother who couldn't bear to let go even after all of their siblings had gone. But, for the first time in sixteen years - and four months - there was nothing.

Locked in her own mind, with nothing for company but Five's thoughts, Quinn couldn't stop her mind from wandering. Had Luther gotten tired of the transmissions? Had he given up on her, like the rest of the Hargreeves children? Was she, for the first time since October 1st, 1989, truly alone?

Before she could follow that train of thought any further, she was pulled back to the present by a gentle hand wrapping around hers. Not for the first time, she wished that she could open her eyes and see who it was - no one ever touched her anymore. Grace bathed her and brushed her hair but that was it, Pogo adjusted the medical equipment that she was attached to, and Reginald, well, Reginald didn't acknowledge that she existed but that was nothing new. Still, no one ever _really _touched her, not without a specific purpose, careful and calculating and focused not gentle and relaxed like the hand that still held hers, or the one brushing dark bangs from her forehead, and she wanted to know who it was.

Thankfully, that question was about to be answered.

"Sorry I'm late, Quinnie," a familiar voice said softly, and Quinn's heart leapt in her chest.

'_Luther,' _she wanted to cry. She wanted to hug him and ask why he was back and to tell him how much she loved him, how much she missed him while he was gone. But she could only lie there, could only listen.

"Sorry I'm late," he repeated, chuckling wetly, "I knew that I wouldn't get here in time but I wanted to talk to you in person. You deserve to hear it for yourself, not from someone thinking too loudly."

'_What happened?' _she wanted to shout, _'why do you sound so scared to tell me?'_

But as always, there was nothing that she could say or do, nothing but wait for Luther to continue.

She heard him take a deep breath, and she knew instinctively that he was rolling back his shoulders, shaking his head to clear his thoughts. She might not know what he looked like after all those years, although she did know about Reginald's experiment, but in her mind's eye she could still picture him at thirteen, doing exactly that before asking Reginald for permission to "train" her himself - an excuse to sit on the roof and tell her all about the stars in the night sky.

She was pulled back out of her thoughts by a sharp exhale.

"Dad is dead," he said, and Quinn would swear that she felt the world shift beneath her. In fact, she almost felt lucky to be lying down, it meant that she couldn't collapse as she processed her big brother's words.

_Dad is dead,_ it echoed in her head, resonating so loudly that she was sure that Five could hear her, whenever he was. _Dad is dead._ Reginald was dead? Was that why the mansion had been so silent, she had to wonder. Was that why Luther was finally back? Was that why Grace and Pogo had both missed their nightly and morning visits? Did Five, off in the future or maybe the past, know? Had he seen it coming? Why didn't he tell her?

"_Breathe, Quinnie,"_ another voice echoed in her head. "_I can hear you losing it. "_

"_Dad is dead, Finn,"_ she shouted - as much as she could within her own head. "_He's fucking dead."_

"_I know,"_ her brother told her softly, so much older than when she'd last seen him but as familiar as it had always been. "_But you need to breathe. You're going to hurt yourself like this, you know that."_

He was right, loathe as she was to admit it. She had spiralled before, many times, and it always took several days - based on his counting and Luther's transmissions - before she regained control over her mind and she knew that one day she wouldn't come back from it. So she tried to follow his instruction, focusing on his counting; a habit left from counting her breaths through her panic attacks.

By the time she settled back into herself, Luther had long since moved on and was talking about, well, she wasn't sure what but it involved Reginald's obnoxious monocle. She was just starting to figure out his point - the monocle had maybe been stolen, or something - when she heard the tell tale clacking of Grace's shoes approaching the door.

"Luther," she heard her mom say, voice soft and melodic as it had been when she was awake, "your siblings are home."

Luther's hand tensed in hers, and she wished desperately that she could squeeze it back, that she could tell him that everything would be okay, as he so often did for her. But she could only wait helplessly as he pulled his hand away from hers, and a quick probing into his mind - a habit she never broke from her childhood - told her that he was primarily focused on Allison, although he was worried about Vanya showing up and Diego starting a fight; clearly nothing had changed since they were all children.

"I'll be back, Quinn," he told her softly, squeezing her hand gently before pulling away, and she listened as his heavy footsteps faded away.

Her sense of time was, well, non-existent unless someone was with her, but she thought it was only a couple of minutes before she heard the door closing the chair scraping across the hardwood floors.

It wasn't until a gentle hand, familiarly calloused from years of holding knives, cupped her cheek that she knew who it was.

"Hey there, Q," Diego murmured, and Quinn couldn't help but surprised by his lack of a stutter. "I guess someone's probably told you about dad already, huh? I read the coroner's report, apparently it was a heart attack."

'_I didn't know he had a heart,'_ she wanted to snap.

"I'm more surprised that he has one than that it killed him," he continued, and she could almost feel Five laughing in the back of her mind, ready with some sort of quip about their similar trains of thought.

But Five wasn't there, physically or mentally, and Quinn would have tried to reach him had Diego not continued speaking.

"But… I guess it's been a while since we - since I talked, huh?"

'_Ten years_,' she thought, ten years since he told her that he was joining the police academy and leaving the mansion; leaving _her_.

"I did go to the academy, even joined the force for a bit until I punched my captain and got kicked out. Now… now I do what we always did, I guess. I…" he laughed shakily, and Quinn knew that years ago he would have been stuttering his way through all of it; the fact that he wasn't told her more about how long it had been than anything else could have. "I don't know, Q, coming back here… it feels like nothing's changed since the day we left."

'_You left! You left me behind, I never ever got out.'_

She heard a loud knock on the door and then the obnoxious creaking as someone opened it.

"Appointments only or is she taking walk-ins?" she heard Klaus ask, and she felt a flood of joy as she realized that her siblings seemed more interested in seeing her than mourning their father.

Diego sighed loudly, failing to cover up a laugh at whatever presumably dramatic entrance Klaus had made.

"Hey there, Quinnie-The-Pooh," he sang, obnoxious and wonderful as ever, "long time no see. And I've gotta say, sis, I'm so sorry. I know that I aged gracefully as a swan but you," he hissed dramatically, "you don't look a day over thirteen. At least you still look better than Diego there," he continued, ignoring his brother's sputtered protests.

That was what Quinn had always loved about Klaus. While Luther and Diego were both naturally quiet, lapsing into uncomfortable silences that they instinctively expected her to fill, Klaus could carry on a conversation as if he knew exactly what she would have said. It was nice, familiar and over the top and absolutely perfect.

"And man, Luther… Did he get into steroids after we left? Talk about passing your prime, or whatever," he laughed.

She heard, distantly, as Diego made his excuses and left the room, as Klaus continued with his dramatics, easily filling her in on his own life and what he knew of her siblings' adventures in the past several years. Some she already knew, from Luther's daily visits, but somehow she'd never heard mention of Allison's divorce - had it happened after Luther left? She wished she could have asked, but even if she could, Klaus had long since moved on to, well, she wasn't entirely sure. Klaus could be hard to follow, after all. She took a peek into his mind, and found that his story had something to do with his latest stint in rehab.

But before he could make his point, she heard another knock.

"Hey Klaus," she heard Allison, her voice as steady and strong as ever, a rock that Quinn could always lean on. "I was just going to say hi to Vanya - she just got here - but I wanted to see her first."

"Well here she is in all her glory," her brother announced, and Quinn was sure that he was gesturing towards her. "Gotta say, the outfit could use some work. Hospital gowns are so last season."

Allison laughed, but unlike her siblings she didn't approach the bed, and Quinn listened as both of them walked away.

Left alone again, Quinn reached out to her siblings' minds, listening through Allison as the siblings fought in the foyer, until she was pulled back into herself by the gentle closing of the door.

"Hey, Quinn," she heard Vanya say; always soft and quiet and no doubt still remembering their last conversation, how she had told Quinn that she wished she'd never been born.

For sixteen years, Quinn had wished desperately that she could tell Vanya that she forgave her, that she loved her. That everything was okay. After Luther had sat in her room for an entire day, reading Vanya's book to her, she had wanted nothing more than to hug her big sister, to promise that she knew that Vanya loved her despite their fights and her cruel words. But she couldn't, and she often worried that Vanya would never know.

"I… I guess Luther probably told you about the book," she chuckled ruefully, "or one of the others mentioned it. I guess… god, Quinn, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry if I hurt you, I just… I didn't think about it until it was too late. I never thought about you hearing all of it."

'_It's okay,' _she would have sobbed, _'I know. I love you, I forgive you, there's nothing to forgive, you're my sister, you'll always be my sister, I love you, I love you, I love you.'_

She thought that Vanya was about to say more, but then the door slammed open.

"You have no right to be here," she heard Luther snap. "Not after what you did."

"Luther-"

"Get out," he hissed, and Quinn could hear the door shut behind him.

"I forgot what it was like to have so many people here," he told her, and she had to agree. She and Luther had both spent so many years alone that having an almost full house was beyond weird, although she figured that she probably enjoyed it more than he did.

She wanted him to say more, wanted to hear about how everyone had changed, wanted to know what was going on when they weren't in her room, but instead she heard a familiar melody emerge from the speaker in her room; the same one that Grace used to play Luther's transmissions.

_Children behave, that's what they say when we're together_

She heard the song, one of Luther's favourites, and for the first time since she'd lost Five to the future, she truly felt at home. She knew that the others could hear it too, knew that they would all be remembering their rare free time, the blanket forts that she used to convince Luther to build so that they had somewhere to sit together, listening to music because if they spoke they'd argue.

_And so we're running just as fast as we can, holding on to one another hands_

She tried so hard to reach out to Five, to bring him into the moment with the rest of them, but there was nothing there. It was like the connection, one that had been there since the day they were born, had been cut off, and she had never been more afraid in her life. Without Five, without her other half, what was she? How could she be, without her twin? And what had happened? Was he… she couldn't bear to finish the thought.

_I think we're alone now, there doesn't seem to be anyone around. I think we're alone now, the beating of our hearts is the only sound_

She had lost herself so deep into the memories of a childhood long forgotten, and into the fear of losing her twin, that she was surprised to realize that the song had come to an abrupt stop, that Luther had clearly stopped it instead of letting it finish. But of course she couldn't ask, couldn't look around, and Luther wasn't offering any explanation.

"Something's happening, Quinn, I'll be right back," he told her, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

While she couldn't see what was happening, she heard quick footsteps and the door slamming, and knew that she was alone again. She was used to being alone; what she wasn't used to was the absolute silence coming from Five when she reached out, to not being able to hear her other half across all of time and space.

And then, for the first time in sixteen years, four months, and four days, Quinn Hargreeves' eyes snapped open.

**-Fin-**

Dun dun dunnnnnnnn

Hope you enjoyed the first real chapter! This was a very difficult (but fun) chapter to write because of just how introspective it is, but I'm very happy with how it turned out and I hope that you all liked it too! I did split the first episode in half - or sort of half - so I'm hoping to take less time with the next excerpt than I did with this one! As always, I hope you all enjoyed it, I'd love to hear any thoughts that you have on this chapter and this fic, and you're always welcome to talk to me on tumblr over at randomestfandoms-ocs!


	3. I'm Waking Up (I Feel It In My Bones)

_The world ends in eight days, Reginald Hargreeves is dead, and Quinn can no longer hear Five's thoughts. And as if funerals, attempted murders, and homicide accusations weren't enough, Quinn Hargreeves has just woken up for the first time in sixteen years._

Disclaimer: I do not own The Umbrella Academy or any character except for Quinn!

Chapter title is from Radioactive by Imagine Dragons

**Hear No Evil**

I'm Waking Up (I Feel It In My Bones)

_I don't think she's gone, though. I think that she's still with Five. And with us, too, but too split to wake up with either. But I used to believe that maybe if we ever got Five back, Quinn would come back too. _-Vanya Hargreeves, Extra-Ordinary: My Life As Number Seven

When Quinn awoke, it wasn't gradual or peaceful or gentle. No, it was sudden and terrifying. She was alone in a dark room, surrounded by beeping machinery, and outside of the lone window, the sky glowed unnaturally blue - probably the reason that Luther had run off. She tried to stay calm, she really did, but everything was too bright and too loud and she was _alone_. So she did the only thing she could think of, what she'd been wanting to do for sixteen years.

She screamed.

She screamed as loud as she could, until she could see the water glass beside her bed start to shake. She screamed until she started to cough and then kept screaming. She screamed for all those times she couldn't scream, for sixteen voiceless years. She screamed until she fixed her connection with her twin, until she could feel his presence back inside her mind.

Her eyes clenched shut and hands covered her ears, she rocked back and forth and shook like she was trying to escape her own body, and she screamed. She screamed, and she screamed, and she screamed. The door flew open and slammed shut, and the six surviving Hargreeves piled into the room, and she kept screaming.

Her twin, her long lost brother, jumped onto her bed in a flash of blue, gently pulling her hands from her ears to hold in his own, and Quinn continued to scream. Luther, her strong supportive big brother, the only one who stayed, joined the twins on the bed, pulling her against his chest and holding her close, but she didn't stop screaming.

And then Five, who held her so close and so tight that they seemed to be as physically joined as they were mentally, leaned in. He pressed a soft kiss to the crown of her head and cupped her cheeks in gentle hands, before bending his head to whisper in her ear.

"Wake up, Quinnie," he whispered, "I've got you."

His voice should have been lost under her screams, and, to their siblings, it was. But the twins had never communicated through voice alone, and Five thought as loudly as he could, pushing and pushing until he was sure that she could feel him in the back of her mind.

And, as suddenly as it had began, the screaming stopped. It didn't taper off, her voice didn't shake and fade out, she didn't slowly come around. One second she was screaming, and the next she had gone completely silent, eyes flashing pure white before she slumped against her brothers.

Intimately familiar with her spirals as he was, Five was prepared for it and caught her against his chest.

He tucked her head into the crook of his neck and ran a hand through her hair, content to hold her for a moment before gesturing for Luther to help him lay her back down in the bed. Gently, he smoothed out the hospital gown that had bunched around her legs before moving to sit at the edge of her bed and brushing his hand through her hair once more.

"She'll be fine," he told his siblings, not looking away from his twin, "she doesn't usually wake up when she spirals but she does always crash."

"What the _fuck_ are you talking about?" Diego demanded. "Spirals and crashes, and how would you even know? You haven't been here in _years_."

"I haven't been with you guys," he corrected tersely, "I'm always with Quinn. I've always been with Quinn," he added, "we share a mind. She could hear all of you, but she could actually talk to me. I spent almost fifty years sharing her thoughts, I know how this goes."

Luther opened his mouth to ask - well, he wasn't sure what he was going to ask, but it didn't matter because he never got the chance.

"Who undressed me?" a soft, scratchy voice asked from the bed. "It better have been Allison."

The room fell silent, aside from Luther choking on his breath, until Allison finally broke it.

"Quinn?" She whispered, disbelieving. "Holy _shit_."

And that was all it took for the silence to break. Suddenly the Hargreeves were all talking over each other, asking what had happened and what she remembered and if she was okay, until Five snapped at all of them.

"Shut the fuck up for a minute," he hissed, "she's been frozen for years, let her wake up properly before overwhelming her with your-" he gestured vaguely, but didn't get to finish his thought before his twin was knocking the air out of his lungs with a hug.

"Finn?" She breathed, tucking her face back into his neck, as if she were meant to be there - and in a way, she was.

"I'm back, Quinnie," he promised, neither of the twins noticing Luther rising from the bed in shock. "I'm here. I've got you."

"Is this real?" she asked, not hearing the way Vanya's breath hitched.

"It's real. I'm real. You're awake."

The smaller twin stayed curled up in her brother's arms for another minute before pulling away and, without so much as rising from the bed, threw herself into Luther's arms.

He caught her instinctively, wrapping his arms around her and lifting her up with such familiarity that Quinn could almost forget that it had been sixteen years since he'd last done so.

The rest of the siblings fell quiet as they watched the reunion, all of them remembering the day that Quinn had frozen, how Luther had been the one to find her. They could still hear him screaming, could still see him carrying her down the hallway to the very room they occupied.

"I talked to you," Luther choked out, quieter than they'd ever heard him. "Every day for-"

"Sixteen years, four months, and fourteen days," Quinn finished, pressing her head to his chest, deliberately ignoring the way he stiffened at the added contact. "I know, I heard. You kept me from losing my mind, Luther." She fell silent for a moment, content to just feel the rise and fall of his chest, before speaking up again, quieter than before. "I'm sorry I wasn't there," she added.

"You - you know?" he sighed, just as quietly.

"I could hear you, Luther, of course I know." She felt him start to pull away, and hugged him tighter in return. "You're my big brother, Lu, I love you no matter what."

"I love you too, Quinnie," he told her, pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead, "but I think there are a few other people who want to say hi."

Reluctantly, she released her tight grip and let him set her down. Unsurprisingly to Quinn - although shocking to their siblings - he put her down in front of Vanya.

The violinist shuffled from foot to foot, avoiding her sister's gaze until she was stumbling back from the force of Quinn's hug.

"Quinn, I… I'm sorry," she started, wrapping her arms around the girl.

"Don't be an idiot, Vanya, you're too smart for that. You don't have anything to be sorry for."

"But-"

"I heard about the milkshakes," Quinn interrupted.

"You did?"

"Luther told me. He read me your book, too. God, Van, of course I knew that you didn't hate me. I never thought you did, I'm sorry I couldn't tell you."

She was surprised to feel tears on the crown of her head, to realize that Vanya was crying just as much as she was. Until Luther had read her Vanya's book, it had never even occurred to her that Vanya might think that she hated her, let alone be so shocked to hear otherwise. She gave her sister one final squeeze before pulling away, stumbling into Allison's open arms.

"Hey, sweetie," Allison started, brushing Quinn's hair from her face. "Welcome back."

With startling clarity, Quinn was suddenly reminded of the fact that Allison was a mother; that she had a daughter who could only be a few years younger than she was. And, strange as it was to remember that her sister - her big sister with whom she shared a birth date - was a mother, it wasn't hard to believe. Not with the way Allison held her close, not with the way her careful hand subconsciously brushed through the tangles in Quinn's dark hair, not with the easy confidence with which she let go of the smaller girl to pass her to Diego. No, as she clung to her brother there wasn't the slightest doubt in Quinn's mind that her sister was now a mother.

She would have asked about it, she wanted to know everything about her niece, but before she could figure out where to start, strong arms wrapped around her and she found herself pressed up against a solid wall of muscles.

"'Ego," Quinn murmured into his soft turtleneck. "Missed you."

"I missed you too, Q," he assured her immediately, "every day."

"But you left," she said; an accusation, a condemnation, a plea. "You left me."

"I - Quinn… I couldn't stay. You know that."

"You _left_ me," she repeated. "You all left me."

"Quinn," Luther interrupted, voice cracking for the first time since his teenage years.

"It's just a fact," she told him, not pulling away from Diego. "I know that Reginald sent you but you still left. Every single one of you left me alone here for _years_, do you have any idea what that's like? To be _alone_ in this nightmare of a house?"

Her breaths were growing shorter, and tears formed in her eyes - she was about to spiral again and she knew it. But before she could, a warm hand was cupping the back of her neck, a thumb pressing firmly against her hairline in the same way that Diego had calmed her down since they were children practicing speech therapy together with Grace.

"I'm sorry, Q," he whispered, "I'm sorry, I'm here now."

"Until you all leave again," she scoffed, pulling away.

Klaus sighed dramatically, the familiarity bringing a small smile to Quinn's face.

"Why would you go and make her sad before I get a hug?" He whined, lifting her from behind.

He stumbled slightly - whether from the weight or drugs, no one knew - but spun her in a circle. By the time he set her town she was giggling, and he was quick to give her a proper hug.

"It's about time you woke up, Quinnie the Pooh," he teased, "but I've gotta say, you don't look-"

"A day over thirteen?" she retorted. "So you said."

"You heard that?" He asked, looking to the empty space behind him with a raised eyebrow.

"I heard everything, Klaus."

"Everything?" he echoed, and she nodded.

"So," Vanya coughed nervously. "Five? Where were - how are - what happened?"

"I went to the future," he shrugged. "It's shit, by the way."

"Called it," Klaus sang, though his siblings ignored him.

"How long were you there?"

"Forty five years," Quinn answered, not giving her brother the chance.

"How do you know that?" Luther asked, eyeing her warily.

"We share a brain, Luther," she said, "I was there just as much as I was here." She took a breath, looking around at her siblings. She was glad to see them, she really was, but she wasn't ready to talk about everything; she wasn't sure that she ever would be. "Anyways, I've been in this fucking gown for sixteen years, I'm going to change."

"I'll come with you," Klaus offered, holding out his arm.

She took it gladly, letting him lead the way to her childhood room - which looked identical to the last time she had been there.

She made her way to the closet while Klaus sat on the edge of the bed, both siblings falling silent. Instinctively, she pulled out one of her many uniforms, sliding the skirt up under the hospital gown as Klaus mimed covering his eyes.

"Klaus?" She said softly, looping the tie around her neck with ease.

"Que pasa, sister dearest?"

"Why didn't you tell us that you talk to Ben?" she asked, and Klaus choked on his breath.

"How did you know?" he asked shakily.

"You think so damn loudly, I heard you."

"Well," he coughed, "no one else believed that the Scéance could possibly talk to the dead brother, so I stopped mentioning it."

She nodded in understanding, sitting down next to him and leaning into his side.

"Can you… Can you tell him that I love him? And I miss him so fucking much."

"He's here, Quinn, he loves you too."

She followed his gaze to the corner of the room, despite the tears clouding her vision.

"Hi, Ben," she whispered. "I… I miss you so much, and I love you, and I'm sorry I wasn't there, and -"

"It's okay, Quinnie, he knows," Klaus interrupted, "and you have nothing to be sorry for."

Before either could say anything more, there was a flash of blue as Five joined them.

"Aww, look at you two matching," Klaus cooed.

Both twins rolled their eyes in sync, exchanging small grins.

"Let's go," Five said, as if Klaus had never spoken, "Luther wants to get on with the ceremony."

"And what daddy wants, daddy gets," Klaus agreed, making his way out of the door.

Quinn stood on shaky legs - still unused to standing, let alone walking - and in an instant Five was beside her, wrapping an arm around her waist to support her as he jumped them outside.

As soon as she saw her, Quinn was rushing into Grace's arms, breathing in the familiar scent of her "mother's" perfume.

"Good morning, darling," Grace hummed, "can I get you anything?"

"Thank you, mom, for everything," Quinn said, in lieu of an answer.

Grace smiled softly at her as she pulled away. Pogo approached the two, looking at Quinn in surprise.

"I'm glad to see you awake, Miss Quinn."

"Thanks for never giving up on me, Pogo," she said, hugging him quickly before Five was leading her to the middle of the courtyard to join their siblings.

The seven siblings stood together, with Grace and Pogo on the side, and Pogo handed Luther a jar of ashes.

"Whenever you're ready, dear boy."

Luther dumped out the jar, and the ashes fell to the ground in a heap.

Quinn had to bite her lip to stop herself from laughing, especially when Luther spoke up.

"Probably would have been better with some wind."

Pogo, ever the expert at ignoring uncomfortable silences, stepped forward. "Does anyone wish to speak?" He asked.

The siblings all looked at each other, but no one said anything. What was there to say, really? There were no fond memories, no touching stories to share, and they all knew it.

"Very well," he continued. "In all regards, Sir Reginald Hargreeves made me what I am today. For that alone, I shall forever be in his debt. He was my master and my friend, and I shall miss him very much. He leaves behind a complicated legacy -"

"No," Quinn interrupted, voice still rough from sixteen years of silence. She forced herself to stand straight, although she made no effort to shake Five's arm from where he kept her upright. "I love you Pogo, but don't finish that fucking sentence. He was an abusive piece of shit and that's that. I know that you love him, Luther," she added, giving her big brother a soft, sad smile. "And you don't want to hear it, but everything we went through? Everything he did to us? It was abuse. We have _never_ been anything but pawns to him, nothing but pieces on his chessboard. For twenty nine fucking years, our lives - win or lose, live or die - were his to control. We were literally just numbers to him, how powerful, how useful, how loyal we were to him. He build a fucking robot to raise us because he only cared when he could use us. And you know what?" she asked, turning to their father's ashes on the dirt. "Good fucking riddance."

Ignoring the shocked, horrified, and impressed looks from her siblings, Quinn spat on the ashes. And, having finally said what she'd been thinking for over sixteen years, she let herself slouch against Five, trusting that her twin would never let her fall.

"She's right," Diego said, "he was a monster."

She should have continued to listen, should have followed along as Diego and Luther argued, but Quinn found herself spacing out in Five's hold. It had been sixteen years, everything had changed and yet nothing seemed any different. But she was different, she knew what the future held, and she knew that there were more important things than childhood rivalries.

She barely noticed as Ben's statue hit the ground, barely remembered Five leading her back to her room. In fact, she barely remembered anything until Five was pulling away from her, and without realizing it, she tightened her hold on his arm - which she didn't remember grabbing.

"I'm sorry, Quinnie, I need to go."

"You're not leaving me," she told him firmly, "not again. Wherever you're going, I'm coming with you."

"Quinn -"

"Don't Quinnie me, Finn, I'm coming with you."

He sighed, but nodded, and in a flash of blue, they were gone.

When she opened her eyes, they were standing outside of Griddy's, and her heart swelled.

"Griddy's, Finn? Really?" she teased.

"I need an address," he insisted.

"Mhm, I'm sure," she drawled, "and I'm sure there's nowhere else in the world you could have found it."

He didn't offer her a response, and she smirked to herself. He may have been fifty-eight, he may have survived the apocalypse, and she may have been comatose for sixteen - or forty-five - years, but he was her twin brother and she had never once been fooled by him. No matter how standoffish he acted, no matter how hard he tried to seem unemotional, she knew better. And, as he claimed their old favourite seats at the counter, she knew that he still knew her too.

"Can I get you kids something?" Agnes asked - Quinn remembered her from their childhood, although clearly she didn't recognize them despite looking completely unchanged and still wearing their Academy uniforms. "A glass of milk?"

"The kid wants a coffee, black," Five snapped - clearly time had done nothing to quell his hatred of being patronized. "And an oreo milkshake for my sister."

"You - you remember?" Quinn asked, trying desperately to blink back tears.

"I'd never forget," he told her, linking their hands on the countertop.

She wasn't sure why she felt so overwhelmed by such a simple gesture, but the tears slid down her cheeks regardless. She wiped them away with the sleeve of her blazer, beaming as Agnes set down her milkshake.

"Jesus fuck I've missed these," she sighed, to which Five smiled fondly and squeezed her hand.

"We used to come here as kids," he explained to the man at the counter - who Quinn hadn't even noticed until her brother turned to him. "Used to sneak out with our brothers and sisters and eat donuts til we puked. Simpler times, huh?"

The man hummed noncommittally. "Eh, I suppose."

Agnes cleared her throat as she set down their cheque.

"Here," the man said, "I got this."

"Thanks," Quinn smiled, before turning back to her drink.

"You must know your way around the city," Five prompted, as Quinn pretended not to be paying attention - it was just like their first childhood, with Five - harsh, abrasive Five - demanding answers that he already knew while Quinn - sweet, unassuming Quinn - focused on their thoughts.

"I hope so," he said, "I've been driving it for twenty years."

"Good. I need an address," Five continued.

As Quinn listened, the late night trip started to make more sense. He was looking for a prosthetic - for _the_ prosthetic, the eye that he'd found all those years ago, eight days away. The only clue he'd ever found on how to stop the apocalypse. The only clue he had, with only eight days to solve the puzzle. Her chest tightened, with two words running through her mind on a loop.

_Eight days. Eight days. Eight days._

Five, sensing or maybe hearing her panic, squeezed her hand again and, as soon as the man left, turned to face her.

"Not just eight days," he told her, "I can hear you, Quinn. It's not eight days until the apocalypse -"

"Finn -"

"It's not," he repeated. "It's eight days until we stop the apocalypse."

She would have said more - wanted to say more - but was interrupted by the door chime. A quick glance at the reflection on the bell showed four men, all dressed in black and armed to the teeth.

"_The commission,"_ Five explained. _"On my cue, far left with your tie."_

Quinn squeezed his hand twice - she knew what to do. So she turned her focus back to sipping her milkshake, loosening her tie with a subtle hand, and looking to the world like nothing more than a young schoolgirl.

"That was fast," Five hummed, not turning to look at their attackers. "I thought I'd have more time before they found me."

Quinn continued to sip her milkshake, slowly pulling her tie from around her neck.

"Okay," the closest man said. "So let's all be professional about this, yeah? On your feet and come with us. They want to talk."

"I've got nothing to say," Five retorted.

"It doesn't have to go this way," the man said, aiming his gun at Quinn.

She felt her brother tense.

"You don't fucking touch her," he snapped.

"You think I want to shoot a kid?" the man asked, releasing the safety on his gun. "Go home with that on my conscience?"

"Well I wouldn't worry about that," Five said, voice tightening as he shifted in his seat. "You won't be going home."

Quinn took her cue, vaulting over the counter as her brother jumped behind the man who'd threatened her. She finished looping her tie into a noose, and took advantage of Five's distraction to jump on the man she'd been assigned. Her tie wrapped around his neck and it was easy, distressingly easy to pull it tighter and tighter until he went limp.

By the time she'd removed the noose, Five had finished with the other men and was - she blinked. And blinked again. And a third time.

"Finn?" She said finally, watching him set a bloody knife down on the counter and dig into his own arm.

"Gotta get rid of this," he shrugged, as if there was nothing unusual about ripping a tracker out of his own arm. "Can't have them threatening you again."

Quinn smiled despite herself; some things truly never changed, and it was comforting to know that his need to protect her was one of them. Still, she couldn't help but project her distress as she wrapped a cloth around his arm - their first aid supplies were all at the house, after all.

"Come on," he said suddenly, standing and making his way to the door.

"Where are we going?" She asked, taking his hand in hers.

"To get help."

And, without any further explanation, The Boy jumped them both. When Quinn opened her eyes, they were on an unfamiliar fire escape, and Five was picking the lock.

"Jesus!" she heard Vanya cry as he climbed through, Quinn right behind him.

"You should have locks on your windows," he told her.

"I live on the second floor," she argued, as Quinn disappeared down the hall to find herself a glass of water.

She found the kitchen with ease, grabbing a plastic cup and filling it with tap water. She downed it in seconds and poured herself another before slowly making her way back to her siblings.

"Why are you here, Five?" Vanya asked.

"Because the world ends in eight days," Quinn spoke from the doorway, "and we're going to stop it."

-Fin-

Well, shit. First of all, thank you everyone for such positive feedback on the last chapter! Quinn is such a fun character to write and I love getting to experiment with style in this fic. This chapter is a bit more traditional in it's writing but I would absolutely love to know if you guys have a preference for one style or the other or if you like a mix! It's super exciting to actually have Quinn awake and interacting with everyone, and I'm definitely hoping to get the next chapter out soon! As always, I hope you all enjoyed it, I'd love to hear any thoughts that you have on this chapter and this fic, and you're always welcome to talk to me on tumblr over at randomestfandoms-ocs!


	4. The Land Of Tears

_The twins reflect on a certain eye and try to get some answers. Vanya has her doubts, Klaus wants his money, and Luther is just worried. But as much as Quinn wants to be able to focus on the crisis at hand, it turns out that waking up from a 16 year coma is harder than she expected._

Disclaimer: As always, I don't own the Umbrella Academy

Chapter title is from Le Petit Prince

WARNINGS: angsty apocalypse flashbacks (the same scenes as in canon but with more depiction of Five's emotions in that time), canon-typical violence, and Quinn does have a dissociative episode of sorts. Please read with care, and of course if there are any other warnings that you think I should add, let me know!

**Hear No Evil**

The Land Of Tears

_It started out like any other morning. All of us sitting around the table, listening to one of dad's stupid vinyls. Except for Quinn - she had private training the night before and Grace told us to let her sleep - but we all noticed the empty chair next to Five. Maybe… maybe that's why he was so aggravated , he was always restless - aggressive, even - without her. They were two halves of a whole, in every way, and I know that everyone else could feel it too. Something was wrong with Quinn that day, something to do with her new training, and it had left everyone on edge. But none of us ever expected that he would leave. Not as long as he had Quinn. Apparently we were wrong. _-Vanya Hargreeves, Extra-Ordinary: My Life As Number Seven

—

"Well, after I left the table, I went back to Quinn's room. She had… dad had started her new 'training' program," Five explained, remembering how he'd been up all night hearing his sister's screams; how he'd tried to comfort her, even though she was trapped halfway across town; how they'd discovered that Quinn could do more than just hear him, she could _talk_ to him. "We fought about it, but I made the jump. And it worked. I kept making bigger jumps, until…"

Absently, Quinn reached out to grab his hand, holding it as he took a steadying breath.

"I saw the mansion. Or, what was left of it. It was mostly rubble and flame. Everything was rubble and flame."

"_Quinn?" Five yelled, looking around the ashes for his sister. "Quinn! Quinn, where are you? Vanya? Ben? Dad? Anyone?"_

_He scrambled over a pile of rubble, screaming for his family. But the only answer was stillness, silence. He tried to lift the bricks, digging desperately for any sign of his family, but moving them felt impossible and his arms shook from the strain._

_He tried to jump back, to return to his sister in their proper time. But he couldn't. And that's when he ran. Headlong into the burning building, he found himself over turning every rock as he looked for her. And, he found her._

_She looked exactly the same as he'd last seen her, only her uniform had been traded for a hospital gown. But her dark hair still fell straight down her back with her bangs always slightly too long. It was then that he noticed what she was lying on. It wasn't the ground, like he'd expected. No, it was a chest. And, judging by the tattoo on his - oddly hairy - arm, it had to be one of their siblings. Only, unlike Quinn, he had aged. _

_He looked more closely at the arm wrapped protectively around Quinn, clearly trying to shield her from the destruction. Luther, then. Somehow Five couldn't find it in himself to be surprised; even with his dying breath, Luther was still trying to protect her._

"_Quinn?" He screamed again. And again, and again. As if somehow he could just scream loud enough, as if somehow she would hear him, and come back to him._

"_Finn?" he heard softly, in the back of his mind. "Finn, what's going on?"_

"And that's when we realized that we could still talk," he explained, voice thick with unshed tears. "After that… I survived on scraps, canned food, cockroaches -"

Quinn was quick to tune him out after that. She knew what had happened, she'd been with him every step of the way and she wasn't keen on remembering what her brother, her best friend, her other half, went through.

She forced herself to stay tuned out, mentally running through as many of Luther's songs as she could remember, until the story drew to an end.

"Five, I—"

"You think he's crazy," Quinn interrupted quietly, the first words she'd spoken since Five had started his story.

"I don't think he's crazy, it's just—"

"You think that time travel messed with his head and that reading his mind made me go crazy too."

"It's just a lot to take in," Vanya said.

Of course it was a lot to take in, it was _still_ a lot for Quinn to take in. So she shrugged, leaving Five to argue with her while she tried to push the memories of those earliest days out of her head.

She sat on the couch, staring blankly ahead while Five and Vanya continued to argue. She didn't move — she wasn't sure if she'd even blinked — until Vanya was giving them a handful of blankets.

"I'm sorry," she said softly, "I only have one couch and the chair…"

"It's fine," Quinn promised with a soft smile, taking the blankets from her.

Vanya nodded awkwardly. "Well, goodnight."

"Night, Vanya," Five said, equally awkward.

"Night Vanya," Quinn echoed, standing up to hug her sister. "Love you."

"Love you too, Quinn," she said quietly, before retreating into her bedroom.

Quinn waited while Five took the pillows off the back of the couch to make more space. Once he was laying down on his side, Quinn grabbed one of the blankets and curled up in the space in front of him. Five pulled the blanket up over their shoulders, wrapping an arm around her. And, with a quiet exchange of "I love yous", both twins fell asleep peacefully for the first time in sixteen or forty-five years.

—

She woke up early to the sound of Five's racing mind, and she couldn't help but smile. Five was back and she was awake, and they finally had the chance to save the world — or at least to save their siblings.

She sat up carefully, not wanting to wake Vanya, and Five sat up beside her. She watched as he pulled an eye — The Eye — out of his pocket, resting her chin on his shoulder as they both looked at it.

"Time to go?" she asked.

"No time like the present," he agreed with a wry grin.

Quinn wrapped her arms around him as tightly as she could while he did the same to her.

"We'll save them," he promised, and Quinn nodded.

"We'll save them," she agreed.

They both took a minute to make themselves look presentable — sleeping in their uniforms didn't really help with their unassuming personas — before grabbing hands so that Five could jump them to Meritech Prosthetics.

They landed in a — thankfully empty — bathroom, and, as Quinn followed her brother into the lobby, she wondered how he'd known where to go. She couldn't remember him ever going to Meritech in the apocalypse — and wouldn't it have been in ruins anyways? — but he wore his usual confidence as he led her down the hallways. Knowing him as well as she did, she knew that it may have been sheer dumb luck, that the confidence may have just been a front, but she wasn't going to ask. Five has spent the past forty years planning for when he would finally be able to go back and stop the apocalypse; she wouldn't challenge his plan over something as simple as a building map.

She following him quietly, smiling politely at everyone they passed, and didn't let go of Five's hand the entire time. They navigated through the internal maze that was Meritech before they finally made it to the lobby.

She heard the thoughts of a man who approached, squeezing Five's hand to let him know that it was an employee. He squeezed back, and the two directed their gazes towards the corner of the room, so that he would have to approach them first.

"Uh, can I help you?"

They turned around in sync. Quinn plastered on her sweetest smile, forcing herself to drop her brother's hand so that he could pull out the eye as he approached the man.

"I need to know who this belongs to," he said.

"Where did you get that?"

"What does it matter?"

They had prepared for this moment, and at Five's cue, Quinn moved forward to join them.

_Hold it together_, she reminded herself. _The fate of the world depends on it. _She was almost — almost — grateful for Reginald's endless training. Years of enforced muscle memory were the only reason she could play her part; the only reason she knew how to push past her own limits and force herself to be who Five needed her to be.

"I found it," she lied, eyes wide and lip wobbling. "It was in the playground. It… Someone must have lost it."

"My sister insists on returning it herself," Five added, wrapping an arm around her with a smile that was only mostly fake.

"What a thoughtful girl," the receptionist chimed in, and Quinn didn't even have to fake her blush.

"Yeah," Five agreed fondly, before shifting his attention back to the two employees. "So look up the name for me, will ya?"

"I'm sorry, but patient records are strictly confidential," the man told him. "That means I can't tell you—"

"I know what it _means_," Five interrupted, stepping forward to put himself between Quinn and the man.

"But, I'll tell you what I can do. I will take the eye off your hands and return it to the owner. I'm sure he or she will be very grateful, so if I can just—"

_Shit._ Quinn could see the tension rising in Five's neck, and pulled on his sleeve urgently, hoping that she looked close enough to tears for her plan to work.

"But Finn," she whimpered once he'd turned around, seeing the briefest flicker of amusement in his eyes before falling back into his role

"I know, Quinnie," he assured her, for the sake of their spectators.

He turned back to face the two employees, falling back into their usual routine with ease. Normally she would hate to have to manipulate people, but her family was at stake, and if a simple round of truths and lies could help her save them then she would do it without hesitation.

It had been a game that the eight children had started years ago, a way to make Quinn less afraid of her powers. They would say all sorts of things, leaving it to Quinn to determine if they were true or false. Over the years, the twins had turned it into a useful trick for getting information too, and even a way to make their own lies more believable.

She looked over towards the employees with wide, wet eyes, playing up her role as the sweet, innocent little girl to Five's audacious brat.

"Yeah, you're not touching this eye," he told them, opening the round with a truth — a solid foundation to build on. "My sister is really determined to give it back herself." Followed by a lie. "She's had some bad experiences with the medical world—" Another truth. "—and it's important to her that she sees it returned for herself." And close with a lie.

Quinn had to force herself not to smile at the familiar scene, concentrating on continuing to look as heartbroken as possible.

"Now you listen here, young man—"

Young man. Quinn bit back a grimace. Calling Five "young man" had never ended well for anyone, and she wasn't the least bit surprised when he grabbed the man by his jacket, pulling him down to glare at him.

"No, you listen to _me_, asshole."

Quinn heard the secretary gasp as Five continued to talk, but she tuned him out with ease as she focused in on the man's thoughts. He was afraid. Not ideal, but frightened people were usually cooperative. Except for—

"Call security!"

Except for that.

"Finn," she whined — she wouldn't drop her act until they were safely away from the spectators. "It's no big deal, let's just go."

Five sighed loudly, taking her hand before storming out of the office so dramatically that even Klaus would have been proud. As soon as they were in the empty stairwell he was tightening his hold on her and jumping them back to the Academy.

—

Quinn blinked, taking in the change of scenery before laying down on Five's bed.

She could hear the chaos of his mind, almost painful in its intensity. Even if she couldn't read his mind she would have understood; he felt like he failed. He had exactly one clue as to how to stop the apocalypse and save them all, and it had gone nowhere. But his distress rattled around her brain like a chainsaw, and it was too much to handle.

White. Everything was white. Thoughts — hers, Five's, maybe her other siblings', she couldn't tell — flooded her mind, screaming for attention like forks being scraped across Reginald's best china. It was too much. It was all too much, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't drown any of it out.

—

Some time — a minute or an hour, she didn't know — later, she felt Five's hands touching hers, gently pulling them away from her ears. Huh. She hadn't noticed that she'd covered them in the first place. He nudged her legs carefully, prompting her to unfold from the ball she hadn't known she was in. Five worked slowly, treating her like precious glass as he moved her into a more comfortable position. He unlaced her black leather oxfords, placing them by the door next to his own, then he carefully removed her blazer, draping it carefully over his chair before leaving his own next to it.

A moment later he was climbing into bed, lifting her carefully so that he could reposition her with his head in his lap. He pulled the worn duvet up over her shoulders and, with his fingers carding through her hair mindlessly, Quinn fell into a restless sleep.

—

A loud crash shattered what little sleep she was getting, and she was forced back into the waking world. Squinting eyes fought against bright sunlight, scanning the room for the source of the crash until she saw Klaus fall out of Five's dresser. She blinked slowly, forcing herself to wake up as her brothers faught. She could have listened — maybe she should have listened — but instead she closed her eyes and listened, lingering in the back of Five's mind as she put the pieces together.

They were messy pieces, a jagged and incomplete sort of jigsaw puzzle, but from what she understood, it sounded like his new plan was to bring Klaus to Meritech Prosthetics to pose as his dad. She wasn't really sure how that was going to help, but Klaus' affinity for improvisation had come in handy before.

"Wait," she said quietly, as a new thought crossed her twin's mind.

Both of her brothers startled, turning to look at her. Klaus looked unconcerned, though he always did, but the way her twin shifted his weight told her everything she needed to know.

"You're not leaving me," she told him firmly.

"Quinn—"

"No. Last time you left me, you ended up in the apocalypse and I spent sixteen — forty — years in a coma. You're not leaving me, not again."

Klaus looked at her, eyes wide and head tilted. His gaze kept shifting to the corner of the room, and Quinn instinctively turned to look. She couldn't see him, but she hoped it was Ben, and she smiled softly.

"I know," Klaus was hissing. "Shit just got real."

"Are you—"

"Hey," Quinn snapped, cutting off her twin. "He's talking to a ghost, you're talking to me. You don't get to leave me again, Finn."

Five winced, looking down guiltily.

"I didn't mean to—"

"I know you didn't."

Quinn deflated, all fight rushing out of her at the look on Five's face.

"I know you didn't," she repeated, scooting over to leave space for Five to sit beside her.

He took the invitation, sitting stiffly on the edge of the bed. Quinn slid over to fill the space between them, leaning her arm against his.

"I don't blame you. I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I just got scared so I said the only thing I could think of to get you to stay, but it was mean and I shouldn't have said it. I'm sorry…"

"It's okay, Quinn," he said, just as quiet. "I shouldn't have tried to sneak off, but I need to do this."

"Then I'm coming with you," she told him firmly.

"Quinn—"

"I'm coming with you."

"The more the merrier!"

Both of them startled when they heard Klaus, having forgotten that they weren't alone in the room; that they weren't alone in the world.

Maybe Five hadn't been physically alone with the Commission, but it had been just as lonely as the apocalypse. He had been surrounded by people, but he had no one. He had had Delores and Quinn to talk to, just like he'd had in the apocalypse, but surrounded by people that he couldn't trust, he'd had to shut himself off more than ever.

And with Luther on the moon, Quinn had been more alone in the past four years than she'd ever been before — not counting painful nights of training. Even frozen, she'd constantly been surrounded by activity; by siblings who couldn't bear to lose another sibling. But one by one they had left, until Quinn had nothing but the quiet beep of machinery and her twin brother in her head for company.

"Now that was just touching!" Klaus drawled, snapping Quinn out of her thoughts. "Really, I'm all choked up."

"Shut up," Five hissed, unable to hide the flush rising in his cheeks.

"Aww, don't be embarrassed," Klaus continued. "It's relieving to know that you still have feelings."

"So," Quinn interrupted, before a fight could start. "Where are we going?"

Five raised an eyebrow at her. "You already know where we're going and what the plan is," he said.

"Well yeah, but it's polite to ask."

"Right," he agreed with a wry chuckle. "Well, we're going back to Meritech, but this time with Klaus as our dad."

"And we think that'll make a difference?" she asked.

"Ouch!" Klaus interrupted. "You wound me, Quinnie-The-Pooh! I happen to be very good at getting information from people."

Quinn nodded wordlessly. The plan was rushed and underdeveloped, and she was sure that Five already knew it. But, she would still go.

"But just so we're clear on the finer details," Klaus continued, "I just gotta go into this place and pretend to be your dear old dad, correct?"

"Yeah, something like that," Five agreed.

"What's our cover story?"

"What are you talking about?" Quinn asked, rubbing sleep from her eyes as she stood up.

"I mean, was I really young when I had you?" he asked, while Quinn fixed her tie. "Like, sixteen? Young and terribly misguided?"

"Sure," Five agreed dryly, and despite having her back to him, Quinn could practically feel his eye roll.

"Your mother, that slut," Klaus continued, as if Five had never spoken. "Whoever she was. We met at... the disco. Okay? Remember that."

Quinn caught Five's eye, biting her lip to hold back her laughter as she grabbed her blazer.

Klaus snapped his fingers and she jumped.

"Oh my god," he went on, "the sex was amazing."

"What a disturbing glimpse into that thing you call a brain," Five retorted.

"Don't make me put you in time-out!"

"Kinky," Quinn deadpanned, unable to hold back a laugh at the way Klaus' jaw dropped.

"Quinn!" he breathed, eyes wide. "You're not supposed to know what kinky means! What happened to my sweet innocent little sister?"

Five let out a laugh of his own, quickly masking it with his usual indifference.

"She had to hear all of your thoughts for years," Quinn told him.

"_All_ of my thoughts?" She nodded. "Even—"

"Even the crush you had on Diego until you found out what incest was," she said. "I didn't need to hear… _any_ of that."

"Oh my god, oh my _god_. I destroyed your innocence. I'm the video that killed the radio star," Klaus muttered. "I can't believe that I'm the one who—"

"Anyways," Five interrupted, "I'll drive. Let's go."

—

Quinn followed her brothers down the hallway, silent as she moved. She felt almost like she was floating, like she didn't quite fit into her body anymore and had to hover just outside of it instead.

She didn't quite fit. It wasn't just a feeling, she realized suddenly, the thought making her breath catch in her throat. She missed a step, catching herself against the wall to avoid falling all the way down the stairs. It wasn't just a feeling, not really. She was thirteen, and it was her body, but it also wasn't.

She was thirteen but she wasn't; she had spent too many years in a coma, in the apocalypse, to really be thirteen, but she hadn't grown up either. She wasn't thirteen, but she wasn't not thirteen, and she had lived through the apocalypse without ever growing up.

It was her body, but it didn't belong to her. Maybe it never had, but it definitely didn't anymore. She could use it now, she could see and she could feel and she could move, but she didn't know how. Not anymore, not after so long.

She was something. Or maybe she was nothing. Is that what it felt like, to be a ghost? She wondered if Ben would understand how it felt; to be without being.

—

She couldn't remember the trip to Maritech, not really. She remembered that she had been in the backseat. She remembered that Five and Klaus had fought over who would drive — Five being physically thirteen and Klaus having lost his license. She remembered the giddy relief that came from watching the mansion fade from view. But she didn't remember who had driven, in the end. She didn't remember any of the streets or buildings that they passed. She didn't even remember entering the building.

—

"And what about my consent?" Quinn heard Klaus ask.

It felt distant, like she was underwater. Like she was back in the mansion, unconscious and strapped to a bed. Like she was something Separate. Like she wasn't quite there.

She felt a flare of phantom pain, gasping softly. She looked at Five. Everything else was still foggy, but Five was there. There and real and solid, just like he always was, with a swollen lip and a look of smug indignation.

"Name, now," Klaus demanded.

"You're crazy. I can't—"

"And just look at my little girl's cheek!"

What little girl, Quinn wondered. There were only four of them there. Was Klaus looking at a ghost? Was he—

_SMACK._

Quinn flinched when Klaus' hand collided with her cheek, tears welling up despite her best efforts to hold them back.

Her hand flew up to cradle her aching cheek, and between the rapidly fading fog, the sharp sting radiating across her face, and the flash of white-hot rage and concern emanating from her twin, she knew that it would be hopeless to keep trying to follow the conversation.

—

They were… They were outside, sitting on the steps outside of Meritech.

When had they left? Had they found the eye? Quinn rubbed the palms of her hands across her eyes — wincing when the pressure hit her bruised cheek — and took a deep breath.

The air was fresh, crisp. Nothing like the air in the mansion, nothing like the phantom air of the apocalypse. It was real, and she was there.

"What happened?" she asked quietly.

"Five won't give me my twenty dollars."

"You hit _Quinn!_" Five reminded him, jumping to his feet to pace.

Oh, right. That was why her cheek was throbbing.

"Well, he looked it up for us!"

"And it was totally useless!" Five spat.

"Wait… what was useless?" Quinn asked, feeling almost dizzy from following their fight.

"The eye," Five growled.

Quinn felt herself flinch, and she could see the steadying breath that Five forced through his lungs before sitting back down beside her.

He wrapped an arm around her, letting her lean against his shoulder.

"The eye hasn't been made yet," he explained patiently, a far cry from the aggression he'd directed at Klaus. "In the next seven days, someone is going to lose an eye and cause the apocalypse, and I'm out of leads."

Quinn let out a shaky breath, letting Klaus and Five's continued argument wash over her.

Seven days.

The world was going to end in seven days.

And their only lead wasn't even a lead, not anymore.

They were all going to die, and there was nothing she could do. She hadn't been able to protect Five. She hadn't been able to protect Ben. And she couldn't protect the others. She couldn't do anything; couldn't save anyone.

She didn't react as Five took her hand, didn't so much as blink when he jumped them back to the mansion. She barely even managed to object to Five leaving her, though his promise that he was only going to pick up Delores was a much needed reassurance. She only had seven days left with him, she couldn't lose what little time they still had.

—

She was shaking. She didn't know when she had started shaking; before or after Klaus had hit her? Before or after she had found out that she wouldn't be able to save her siblings after all?

She didn't know, but she was shaking as she made her way into the mansion. Not home, never home. The mansion. A prison. Her own personal hell. Never home.

Still feeling like Reginald — like someone — was holding her head underwater, Quinn took a deep breath. She could no longer hold back the tears that had been threatening to spill over, and it was instinct more than anything that brought her to Luther's door. She knocked before gently nudging the door open.

Luther had had his back to the door, but he turned around as soon as it opened. When he saw Quinn standing there, eyes red and still trembling, he was quick to make his way over to her. He crouched down, hesitating for but a moment before pulling her close.

The slight jerk of his arms was all the invitation that Quinn needed, and before she could think about it, she was clinging desperately to him, and as his arms wrapped around her, she felt a sense of safety that only her big brother could provide.

He was talking. She knew that he was talking. She could hear… she could hear _something_, and she could feel the rise and fall of his chest as he spoke, but she couldn't hear him. It was like she was drowning; like more and more water was separating her from the rest of the world.

He was looking at her, brow furrowed, before turning away. He didn't let go of her for even a second, but Quinn couldn't help the involuntary whimper that escaped her nonetheless.

Moments later he was lifting her up, even more effortlessly than he ever had when they were children, and carrying her out of the room. Her eyes fell shut as she curled up against his chest, but she wasn't the slightest bit surprised when he pushed open a window and brought her out onto the roof.

He sat down first, before helping her settle into a comfortable position on his lap. She blinked groggily when he revealed a hairbrush, warmth blooming in her chest as she realized that he must remember their childhood as well as she did.

She had lost count of how many nights they had spent just like this, with Quinn curled up against her big brother, listening intently as he told her about every constellation that he knew, barely flinching as he brushed her hair for her. He was the only one who had ever been allowed to, and even after — even when she wasn't awake he had never stopped; not until he got sent to the moon.

She didn't know what she would do come morning. She still didn't know how to save anyone, or even how to breathe without feeling like she would fall apart, but Luther had always protected her, taken care of her, and there was nowhere safer to put herself back together than in her big brother's comforting hold.

She still felt like she was drowning; like there was an infinite barrier keeping her under. But safe on the roof, Luther's voice a familiar soundtrack as his hands carefully worked through the knots in her hair, Quinn felt like maybe, just maybe, she could find her way back to the surface.

—

First of all, thank you guys so so so much for all of the love and support that you've given me, Quinn, and this fic! I know it's taken a while for me to actually update it, but I really do think about Quinn and HNE every single day, so it's amazing to know that you guys love her as much as I do! Thank you to everyone who's taken the time to vote/kudos/favourite this fic or to leave me a comment, it means the world to me! I hope you've all enjoyed this chapter (despite the ridiculous wait), and please let me know what you think! As always, if you'd like to see more Quinn content, visit me on tumblr randomestfandoms-ocs!


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